E-Mail

E-mail is one of the most important single applications your computer will run. And, because the GCRC manages sensitive information, it has to be kept as secure as possible. There are several recommendations we make to achieve this.

First and foremost, it is important to keep personal and "work" e-mail separate. If you don't have one, get a private e-mail account and use it for all your private needs (e.g. movie tickets, airline reservations, e-Bay and e-mail for family matters). Don't use your personal accounts for work; obviously not for protected health information.

Using E-mail at work.

Install and use a secure e-mail client on your work computer.

For Macintoshes, the simplest and best is probably to use Apple's Mail App, which comes integrated with OSX. The benefit of this is that Apple's development work will provide updates and improvements as OSX evolves, so you will not have to worry about keeping up-to-date. The drawback is the there are several bugs that must be patched if you are running any version of OSX that is lower than 10.3.9. If you have problems with setting it up, please call 3-7492 and we'll help.

For PCs, we recommend Mozilla Thunderbird. Thunderbird is free and derived from the mail component of Mozilla (and Netscape which will cease development by AOL). The software is mature, reliable and secure and interacts very well with the GCRC server.

Here are sets of instructions to set up several e-mail packages:-

• Apple Mail on a Mac
• Entourage on a Mac
• Eudora (all platforms)
• Outlook on a PC
• Thunderbird (all platforms)

Accessing your GCRC E-mail from home.

If you set up your e-mail client using the instructions we provide above, you will be able to receive and send e-mail from home as well as from work. This is the best solution for all users who want a "home office" environment.

As an alternative to setting up an e-mail client, the school has provided the IMAP Mail Program (IMP), which is a web client to e-mail servers that the school supports. IMP can be accessed both inside and outside the SoM's firewall and encrypts data traffic to and from the desktop. This is the simplest way to read mail from outside your office. Disadvantages of IMP are the fact that it can become very slow if your INBOX is full and it may be significantly slower than a local e-mail client.

Mail Transport Security.

Handhelds/Mobile phones: There are significant challenges getting these devices to read mail from the GCRC's server securely, if at all. Please! Do not purchase one of these with the expectation that it will connect to the GCRC's server: for the most part, they will not work. Sophisicated mobile phones are expensive, so ask first before you purchase so that your expectations as to what will and will not work are clear in your mind.

Anti-Spam.

The GCRC has purchased a license for PMAS (PreciseMail Anti-Spam) and has integrated it into its mail service software. PMAS filters the incomming mail and passes, flags, quarantines or discards mail based on the software's evaluation of it as containing spam. Read the on-line PMAS documentation to get an overview of the software. Once you have read the documentation, log into the PMAS web site on GCRC using your ID and e-mail password to change your filtering preferences. Make only small changes initially since the default settings have been shown to be best for nearly all users.

PMAS filters mail continually and is likely to copy a significant fraction of your incomming mail to quarantine. Log into PMAS at least once a day to look at the messages that have been copied into the your quarantine area. Once you have reviewed the list of messages, release those that interest you and delete the remainer.

Mail Steven Aponte if you have questions or problems, particularly if you can't log in!